Eye Health Carnival Safety Tips

The great­est show on earth is al­most here again. Did you know that your eyes are con­sid­ered one of life’s great­est gifts? Here are some tips to pro­tect your eyes this car­ni­val sea­son.

Whether you are on the beach or the road for car­ni­val week­end, sun­light and bright glare can de­crease the amount of fun you’re hav­ing. For­tu­nate­ly, this is­sue can be re­solved with the use of po­lar­ized sun­glass­es or lens­es. These are made with a spe­cial chem­i­cal to fil­ter sun­light from pass­ing through. You may think of this lens sim­i­lar to win­dow shades/blinds that on­ly al­lows a cer­tain amount of light to pass through. They block hor­i­zon­tal light rays which are usu­al­ly emit­ted from smooth sur­faces in­clud­ing cars and wa­ter sur­faces. This means that on­ly light rays that ap­proach your eyes ver­ti­cal­ly can fit through those open­ings. As a re­sult, the im­age you see with po­lar­ized lens­es is a bit dark­er than usu­al, but ob­jects look crisper and clear­er, and de­tails are eas­i­er to see. Po­lar­ized lens of­fers the fol­low­ing ad­van­tages in­clud­ing im­proved vi­su­al com­fort, im­proved con­trast and vi­su­al clar­i­ty as well as re­duced glare and eye strains. To learn more about the ben­e­fits and dis­ad­van­tages of po­lar­ized lens­es, talk with your eye care provider.

If you wear spec­ta­cles/glass­es and are par­tic­i­pat­ing in car­ni­val fes­tiv­i­ties then you should be think­ing about con­tact lens­es. Con­tact lens­es are con­ve­nient, has­sle free and you elim­i­nate the risk of your glass­es falling, break­ing or get­ting lost. Con­tact lens modal­i­ties usu­al­ly vary be­tween month­ly, bi- week­ly and dai­ly wear, how­ev­er, dai­ly dis­pos­ables would rec­om­mend for these types of ac­tiv­i­ties. Dai­ly dis­pos­ables are one-time use lens­es which when fin­ished, you can throw them right away, no clean­ing or stor­age is nec­es­sary. Sim­i­lar to your glass­es, con­tact lens­es are al­so now avail­able with tran­si­tions, UV and blue light pro­tec­tion. Un­like glass­es, con­tact lens­es can al­so be a short-term com­mit­ment as you can ask your op­ti­cian to or­der tri­al lens­es for you.

Even with­out the pro­tec­tion of­fered by sun­glass­es, your eyes nat­u­ral­ly de­fend it­self from harm. Your eye­lash­es and tears work to­geth­er to pre­vent small par­ti­cles and de­bris from get­ting stuck in the eyes. Lash­es usu­al­ly pre­vent de­bris and oth­er small par­ti­cles from en­ter­ing the eye while tears rinse out and drain the par­ti­cles that do get in the eye. Oc­ca­sion­al­ly, a sol­id ob­ject or pro­jec­tile can ad­here to the eye or em­bed it­self be­low the sur­face of the eye. If this hap­pens to you dur­ing the car­ni­val sea­son you can wash your eyes with saline or pur­chase an eye wash at the phar­ma­cy. You can al­so con­sid­er us­ing ar­ti­fi­cial tears for dry or ir­ri­ta­ble eyes.

Eye care safe­ty is very im­por­tant and as such the three most im­por­tant rules to fol­low are:

1. Wear sun­glass­es

2. Re­move all eye make­up and glit­ter be­fore go­ing to bed

3. Nev­er touch your eyes with dirty hands.